Hi, I'm Edward Sree, and welcome to all things Catholic where real faith meets real life.

I want to tell you about the first time my Italian cousin, Stefano, came to visit us

here in the United States.

We wanted to give him an amazing American experience, so we took him to downtown Chicago,

soldier field to watch an NFL football game with the Chicago Bears.

That's pretty American, but I gotta tell you, my Italian cousin, Stefano, he loves football.

Yeah, he is passionate about football. He knows everything about football. The only problem is

what he calls football. We call soccer. So he had no idea what was going on in this American

football game. And so when we made a great play, everyone stood up and cheered and

Stefano went with with us and he started cheering as well. And he said, did we win?

I said, oh, no, no, we just we just made a good play. And then when the ref made a bad call,

the bad call by the referee, we all put our fists up in the air and we start booing, boo.

And Stefano puts his fists up in the air and says, boo, and he said, did the other team score?

And I said, no, no, it's just a bad play. And then finally when the bear is blocked a pump,

grab the ball and returned it all the way down into the end zone. And we scored a touchdown.

Everyone's jumping up and down. They're hugging each other, giving high fives. And

Stefano goes along with everyone else. He's hugging people all around him. He doesn't know. He's

given them high fives. But this time he doesn't even bother asking me a question. He just looks

over at me with a smile as if to say, I have no idea what's going on. But I'm sure it's good

for the bears. Well, I don't know if you've ever had that experience, but there are many Catholics

that experience the mass this way. They kind of go through the motions with everybody else. They

stand. They sit. They kneel. They make the sign of the cross. They say, thanks be to God and

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